While you might ordinarily be suspicious about clicking links called Silly Sausage, failure to do so in this case would mean missing out on Nitrome's latest arcade game. Following the world's most adorable stretchy puppy (I guess it was about time Choo Choo Bear got a canine foil), your goal is to help him contort himself through mazes and around hazardous obstacles, guiding him through pipes and pathways in search of treasure. Use the [arrow] keys to make your new elastibuddy str-e-e-etch out in any direction, but the catch is as soon as you release the button, he'll snap back into normal shape. Fortunately, he can stick to certain bits of the landscape (you'll know it happens when he grabs onto the object with a "thwack" sound rather than just bumping into it), and this will give you a new spot for our puppy to return to as his landing base. You'll need to grab all the gems on each level to open the portal to the next, but keep an eye out for hazards, since three hits means you'll need to restart the level.

Silly Sausage is another retro game for the Nitrome Entertainment System (the first being Super Treadmill), but this is the first to feature the much-coveted "Game Muscle" bonus cheat cartridge, which will let you input those cheats as passwords via the main menu... provided you guess what they are, of course. There are thirty levels to conquer with your amazing powers of being really pink and really elastic, and it doesn't take long for the difficulty to ramp up. Nitrome's attention to detail in recreating that old-school arcade-sy feel really shines in everything from the level design to the sound effects, and it goes without saying that the graphics are both beautiful and adorable. The downside is that making sharp turns can be frustrating to get the hang of when you're trying to maneuver the puppy's pudgy body in a narrow space, and it becomes even more so when failure means smooshing your face up against spiky death. If you're like me (and Happy Gilmore) and only get more frustrated each time things like this happen, Silly Sausage feels like less a cheerful, relaxing nostalgic romp and more like a twitchy, nerve-shredding gauntlet.

Still, if you've got nerves of steel to go with your fabulously fleshy and stretchy torso, Silly Sausage is a gorgeously retro and challenging experience. The more you play, the more elaborate levels become, with pipes, switches, sawblades, and much more standing between you and sweet gem-studded glory. So loosen up those muscles and warm up with some yoga, because you've got some contortions to get to!

41 Comments

Doesn't work for me. Nitrome games rarely work, in fact. They seem to have some weird advert pre-loader that prevents the game from loading properly regardless of what browser I attempt to use.* A pity, since I'd like to play this.

*: Browsers being Firefox 4, IE8, and Google Chrome, all fully patched and running the latest version of Flash. Ho hum.

[It has to be something with your particular configuration, Rose, because I just successfully loaded the game in IE8, Firefox 4 and Google Chrome, all fully updated and running the latest version of Flash. -Jay]

You know, this may come as a big surprise to people here that know me and how much I love Nitrome, but this game honestly disappointed me at first. Something about the control scheme was annoying to me. It's been steadily growing on me, though. It's a good game. It's no Canary, Steamlands, or Test Subject Blue/Green, but it's still pretty good.

HOTDOGS and MUSCLES are two cheats as well. I do not know what they do at the moment.

When I first saw the previews, I was predicting that this would be the worst Nitrome game by far. Yes, it did turn out that this was one of my least favorite Nitrome games, but it really was much better than I expected.

Well, it wouldn't be retro if it wasn't tough (and frustrating at times), but I wish the difficulty came a little more from the level design and a little less from the controls. I mean, the enemies are slow-moving, the spikes don't seem like they should be hard to avoid, but as the review says, it's hard not to mess up and hit the wrong key and do something you didn't intend.

In particular, the way you can grab on to surfaces and relocate yourself around the level is clever, but the fact that you have to RELEASE the arrow keys in order to do it is counter-intuitive. I know that people these days don't like to read instructions, and would never figure out that they could relocate if it was e.g. [SPACE BAR] to do so... but you wouldn't have seen an NES-era game like this that didn't make use of at least one of the A/B buttons.

I actually really enjoyed this game (though I'm only on level 18). I haven't found it overly difficult so far; maybe that will change. I think it's quite well executed, in fact--better than some of Nitrome's other offerings which I haven't enjoyed. Just my $0.02.

I actually really loved this one. I have a knack for liking all the nitrome games other people hate. The controls were really weird for the first couple levels, but i got used to it pretty quickly. I actually managed to finish this one, which is weird because I never finish nitrome games.

I really like this one, too. I didn't understand the controls right away, but then I got used to them quickly. I like how this is a simple idea executed well, instead of the sprawling inconsistency of some of Nitrome's more complex games.

Nitrome went from being my favorite developer whose games I eagerly anticipated and enjoyed playing repeatedly, to fairly close to my least favorite developer whose game controls are just too futzy and either over or under sensitive to the point of near-impossibility to play.

Not only do I not look forward to their games anymore, every time I play one to see if it's gotten better, I'm just more and more convinced that Nitrome has just quit making games for the casual gamer who just wants an amusing diversion for 15-20 minutes.

It's a pity, and I'm sad to say any of this, because it used to be so much fun to play their games.

SkylerF,
yes, I have. But, since GrinnyP said "puppy", I thought she meant real dogs.

As for the game: dunno, I didn't find the control much of a nuisance like some of the others. All in all, I had a good time with the game, I liked it. As others mentioned, level #18 seems harder than the others, took by far the most tries to go through.

-nitrome makes happy hot air boxes
-muscles makes you only have one life
-hotdogs turnes all gems to hotdogs
-reverse makes the dog turn the opposite way to arrow keys

i really liked this game, as i do for most nitrome games but at one point they did lose something but they have now firmly got it back (whatever it is)with canary. the five games before canary were just boring and made me leave the games after 3 levels.

@StephenM3
We only know those five passwords. I'm guessing there's a password that gives you more lives/makes you invincible, and maybe a password that makes all the enemies slower. Possibly even one that lets you grab onto anything.

I know it may have been mentioned already, but "FLIPPED" turns the level upside down and the backgrounds change colour.

Sadly, words like "STRETCH" or "SAUSAGE" don't work, because it would be kind of funny if they did.

Honestly, I don't understand people who keep saying that Nitrome's games are disappointing. When I first saw the trailer, I thought I wouldn't like this game, although I did like the music. Then it was released, and by surprise, I found that the controls weren't as complicated to use as I expected. I found the levels to be okay in terms of their increasing difficulty, and when I thought a level was really hard, it actually just required a bit of thinking to get through.

Level 18 was an exception, though. I thought that was pretty hard.

At the moment I'm on level 22. It seems pretty hard, but I haven't actually started to play it yet.

Also, I have experienced a small glitch. When I tried to load the game once, not only did it appear on the game screen, but the advertisement next to it also loaded the game, and the two tunes were playing on top of each other. It was only when I closed my Internet Explorer and reloaded it that it fixed the problem. Just thought I'd say.

Love the game, but I've noticed something as I progress into the later levels.
This is nothing if you're patient, but when you are hit, the dog blinks. This requires you to remain in position until you stop blinking, because if you start moving around while blinking you may miss a beat and hit another trap.

This is kind of a "meh" game overall. The gameplay is okay, but the controls are still kind of slippery and can be frustrating. It's better than The Bucket (my least favorite Nitrome game, which was Nintendo Hard all the freaking time, fairly painful to play, and fairly unappealing aesthetically) or BC Bow Contest (which was way too short and way too weak as an idea) but it's certainly not in the quality range of Nitrome's best (Steamlands, Dirk Valentine, Skywire, Frost Bite, Final Ninja, Toxic, Canary, etc.).

NITROME: Changes the wooden blocks to Cuboy faces and makes the background pink.
HOTDOGS: Changes the gems to hot dogs.
POOMODE: Whenever the dog lets go of a surface, a poo is left behind and a fart sound is played. Note: If leaving a cloud block no poo or sound will be made.
REVERSE: Reverses the control scheme.
MUSCLES: Limits you to one life. Note: the score multiplier will be x1.
CHICKEN: Gives you five lives. Note: The score multiplier will give you x5 if you have 5 hearts.
DOGMEAT: All enemies move at double their normal speed.
GRANDPA: All enemies move at half their normal speed.
PRESENT: Dog Bones slowly randomly appear around the level, worth 50 points each.
FLIPPED: Flips the level upside-down, colours the wooden blocks light blue, and makes the background moving red, green blue, and purple stripes. Note: the gems are flipped and the saws are completely visible.

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